


Alison Bruce and the Delphic Destiny

by gumbiecat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: (in a positive light), (only in the prologue though), Child Abuse, Cursed Child was garbage, Harry Potter Next Generation, Hogwarts, Not Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Rating May Change, References to Religion, Warnings May Change, but I loved the concept so I'm running with it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29060571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gumbiecat/pseuds/gumbiecat
Summary: In another world, Delphi Riddle is raised by Death Eaters to revere her parents. There, she tries to revive Voldemort through a diabolical mix of dark magic and time travel, and spends her life in Azkaban when she fails.This is not that world.Abandoned on a church doorstep, Alison Bruce is raised by Muggles. She steps into Hogwarts unprepared for the dangers of magic... and unaware of the terrible secret that lies at the core of her very existence.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	1. The Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Would be a prologue, but I hate when fics start on a prologue and then Ao3's chapters don't match up with the actual chapters. :P

**May 2, 1998**

The night was alive with the cries of the defeated, and Euphemia Rowle felt only numbness and rage, an odd set of emotions for someone currently holding a baby.

The Mudbloods had won.

The war was over, and the Dark Lord had lost. 

Euphemia looked down at the child in her arms, wondering if it could change anything. It was just over a year old, barely toddling and capable only of babbling. It gazed up at her, spittle dripping down its chin and the stars reflected in its wide dark eyes, and Euphemia’s lip curled with distaste. She’d never liked children. Still, it was the Dark Lord’s child, and Rodolphus had offered her all the gold in his coffers to care for it. He’d Apparated into the Malfoy’s living room, babbling about the Dark Lord’s death and the fate of the child, hung a necklace about its neck, and pressed the key to his Gringotts vault and a promise into Euphemia’s hands before Disapparating away to God knew where. 

Rodolphus’ fortunes were great. But to be caught with the Dark Lord’s child… would the reward outweigh the risk?

In another timeline, Euphemia might have decided it would. But now, standing on the steps of Malfoy Manor, listening to the panic of the Death Eaters as they rushed about, she thought, no. Rodolphus had been an idiot, and hadn’t forced her to make any sort of promise other than a verbal one. She could abandon the child and still help herself to his gold. 

She made her decision, hefted the child in her arms, and Disapparated. 

The baby started screaming when they reappeared, and Euphemia scowled. She pressed her hand over its mouth and looked around. 

She wasn’t sure what town she was in--it was a place she’d visited many years ago, chosen at random because it was the most Muggle-infested hovel she’d ever been to. She’d appeared near the town centre, and a sign hanging off a building with flyers in the windows proclaimed the structure to be the Little Grahamsby Centre of Tourism, so Euphemia supposed the town must be Little Grahamsby. She strode briskly to it, and raised her lit wand to inspect the town map hanging in the window, shifting the child to her hip.

The child babbled and Euphemia slapped it. “Shut up,” she growled. She found what she was looking for and Apparated again. 

The church loomed in the night, its spire blackening out the stars. It was an old one, Euphemia thought, going by the moss on its sides, though she knew little of Muggle religion. One of the things she did know was that churches were convenient dumping grounds for unwanted babies, and no baby was less wanted than this one. 

She walked to the heavy wooden doors and set the baby down on the steps. It tried to stand up and fell over, reaching for her as she turned away. 

“Don’t follow me,” Euphemia hissed, though the infant wouldn’t understand. She lifted it under the armpits and sat it down firmly on the church step. The necklace around its neck caught the moonlight, and it glittered off the Black family crest, incredibly detailed for such a small pendant. Euphemia reached out to take the necklace, then thought better of it. It was valuable, but it was also evidence. 

Euphemia scowled at the child as it tried to stand up once more. “Goodbye, you little brat,” she said under her breath, and Disapparated away as the baby began to wail.


	2. A Sinister Visitor

As far as Alison Leticia Bruce was concerned, her summer had gone quite abruptly from blissful to bad to downright awful. 

To be fair to the summer, it itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was the impending autumn, and all the changes that were approaching much too quickly for Alison’s liking, chief among those her friends scattering across the continent to different schools. First, Zoe had announced that her parents were sending her to a residential school for the deaf and hard of hearing in London, more than two hours away from everyone in Lumley. Two hours! And a residential school, where Zoe would only be home for Christmas and Easter and summer! Yes, all right, it was certainly better for her education, but what about their gang? What about Alison and Aamir and Todd?

Well, Alison had thought, at least they’d have Skype. And at least she’d still have Aamir and Todd at the Lumley Secondary School. But then Todd had to go and win a scholarship to Tonbridge, with his mathematical brilliance and prodigy cello-playing. That was a boarding school too, and two hours away in a different direction. So it would be just Alison and Aamir at Lumley Secondary in the fall.

Which would have been all right--still awful, but bearable--if not for what Aamir had just confessed to her.

***

They were in the woods, sitting by the stream that ran parallel to Rose Street, tossing rocks in and watching the frogs. Zoe was visiting her grandparents, and Todd was at cello, so it was just Alison and Aamir. She was the first to hear the terrible news.

“I’m sorry,” Aamir said helplessly, staring at his feet in the water. His face twisted horribly, like he was trying not to cry. 

Alison was trying too. “I know you have to go,” she said, hating the helpless whining tone in her voice, “but--Scotland, Aamir? That’s hours and hours away!”

Aamir nodded miserably. “I know. I don’t even want to go, not really, but I--” He cut himself off. “I--I got a scholarship, and Mum thinks it will be better--it’s really exclusive, and they can teach me stuff I can’t--I mean--” He looked up at her, his eyes filled with something between anguish and guilt. “I’d stay if I could, you know that. I’m so sorry, Al.” 

Alison took a deep breath. This isn’t about you, she thought viciously. It’s not Aamir’s fault you’ll be stuck in the village all alone with Cindy and Robbie and all the other noncreative garbage. Don’t make it harder on him than it has to be. 

She sniffled, and rallied a ghost of a smile. “Serves me right,” she said, swiping her wrist viciously across her eyes. “Serves me right for making such smart friends. Should’ve gone with Robbie and his little band of idiots. I'd've fit right in there.” 

“Come on, don’t say that.” Aamir punched her shoulder lightly, managing a half-smile of his own. “You’re brilliant.”

“Not brilliant enough to get into a fancy school.” The whining tone was back. Alison cleared her throat and said, “So how’d you get in, anyway? I didn’t know you’d applied anywhere.” 

Truthfully, she hadn’t thought that Aamir could afford to apply anywhere. He and his brother Ghateem and their mother Nadia lived in a house rented from Mrs. Gumbbs on Sterling Lane. Ghateem worked at the village supermarket, while Nadia, or Ms. Bhatti, as she was known to everyone but hers and Aamir’s closest friends (but never Mrs., she was very clear on that note) eked out a living teaching yoga and dance and choreographing performances for the various village social clubs and associations. They got checks frequently from Aamir’s father, who lived in London, but Alison wouldn’t have expected him to muster quite this much financial support. 

Aamir looked away. “I dunno. I think they just saw my transcripts or something. Can we talk about something else, please?” 

Alison paused. That didn’t seem right to her. She wasn’t certain how schools worked, but she was pretty sure you had to actually apply. 

“Your mum applied for you, didn’t she?” she guessed out loud. 

Aamir nodded. It was a beat too late, but Alison ignored that. Aamir got quiet and secretive and ashamed sometimes, and she’d learned that it was better and kinder to ignore whatever was making him feel that way unless she and Zoe could beat it up for him. 

They’d been together since the beginning—Aamir had been Alison’s very first friend when her family moved to Lumley. Alison had been seven, and still reeling from the aftermath of The Incident, and trying desperately not to pick up the reputation she’d had in her old village, where she was known as That Weird Girl Who Talks To Snakes And Likes Toads And Bugs And Collects Bones For Fun. Or, for short, Vicar Bruce’s girl, but said with such inflection as to carry all the weirdness in five syllables. 

Alison had spent the first few weeks at her new school squashing down every weird thought and impulse she had, and forcing herself to shriek at bugs like everyone else. She’d worn a pink ribbon in her heavy black curls to get into character. She didn’t really have anything against pink, but she didn’t like the connotations of it, which was why she wore it—because all the things she did like were unacceptable now. 

She’d almost managed it, too, almost managed to erase her personality completely. But then she was walking home and she saw the loveliest barred grass snake in the foliage by the side of the path, and she just had to say hello. So she’d crouched down and said hello, and the snake said hello back, and they chatted about the weather, and how eggs were hatching this time of year, and baby mice were being born, which meant lots of easy food, and the snake was expecting a clutch of eggs too, wasn’t that nice, and they’d talked and talked until—

“Are you talking to that snake?”

Alison had tried to stand up and turn around at the same time, and fallen over. A small brown boy, one she vaguely recognized from her class at school, stood a few feet away, clutching his school bag and staring at her. 

“No,” Alison had lied. The snake fled. 

The boy tilted his head. “I’ve got a pet snake at home,” he said. “A corn snake. Want to meet her?”

Alison had known right then that they were going to be friends. And they had been ever since. Aamir had introduced her to Zoe, and then the next year Todd’s parents divorced and he moved to the village with his father, and from then on the four of them were inseparable. 

Until now. 

“It’s going to be awful,” Alison admitted, unable to keep herself from whining. “But at least we’ll have Skype and stuff. We can all group Skype. That’ll be all right.” 

Aamir stared into the water. “Actually…”

“What?”

“They, uh.” He kicked his feet, making little splashes. “The man from the school said there’s no electronics where I’m going.”

Alison’s mouth dropped open. “What?” 

“I’ll write you every day, I promise,” Aamir said quickly.

“That’s crazy. That’s insane.” Alison shook her head, trying to understand. “It’s the twenty-first century, Aamir, they can’t send you somewhere without electronics. What, is this school a bloody cult?” 

Aamir snorted. “Don’t be silly. It’s in Scotland, not America.”

“We have cults here too! You can’t send people places with no electronics, not these days. That’s not just internet, that’s everything. Lights and music and news--”

“They probably just meant personal electronics, all right? Like iPods and stuff. I’ll be fine.” 

“But you won’t be able to talk to us.”

He grabbed her hand. “I’ll write. Every day. I promise.”

Alison sighed. She hated writing letters. It took her weeks to do thank-you notes. But for Aamir, she would learn. “I will too,” she said, squeezing his fingers. “Promise. You have to promise not to join Scientology, though, okay?”

Aamir laughed. “That’s not a real thing.”

“It is so real. I saw in a documentary. They have a church in Hollywood.” 

“Fine, then.” He crossed his heart. “I promise not to convert to Scientology.”

“Or join any other cults.”

“Or join any other cults, I promise.”

“Good.” She squeezed his fingers one more time and then let go. “When do you leave?”

“First of September.”

“Ugh, that’s less than a month away!”

“I know.” Aamir sighed and tilted his head back. “I wish it was longer. You and Zoe and Todd will have a whole week without me.”

“And then I’ll be all alone.”

“I’ll be alone too. I just won’t be alone here.” He scowled. “I’ll be alone at some dumb posh private school where they give me weird looks and ask questions like but where are you REALLY from? And you and Zoe won’t be there to punch them for me.”

“I’ll hitchhike to Scotland and punch them.” Alison leaned her head on his shoulder. “It’ll just be a delayed punch is all. Good things come to those who wait. Or bad things, I guess.” 

“Punches is a virtue,” said Aamir. 

Alison grinned. “A needle in the hand is worth two in the haystack.”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it!”

“You know which side your can of worms is opened on.”

“Ew. Don’t look a sleeping dog in the mouth.”

“That’s just practical advice, really. A journey of a thousand leopards begins with a single spot.”

“A needle a day keeps the haystack away.”

“I already did that one!”

“But I messed it up differently so it doesn’t count. An idle brain gathers no moss.”

***

They stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, trading malapropisms and misremembered trivia, until the sound of the church bells tolling five drifted down the lane. Alison pulled her feet out of the water and reached for her sandals. She didn’t like wearing socks if she could help it. “We meeting tomorrow?”

“Dunno. My mum might be taking me to get school stuff.” Aamir got up and stretched. He picked up his shoes, socks tucked neatly inside, and reached out to pull Alison to her feet. “We’ve still got three weeks, Al.”

“Yeah. Course we do.” She wondered which of them he was trying to reassure. 

Aamir kicked a small rock. “Well. See you later, then?”

“‘Course,” said Alison, recognizing her cue to leave. She tossed a wave over her shoulder as she ran down the lane, her dark curls dancing. 

She was distinctive and she knew it, catching a glimpse of herself in the convenience store window as she ran by with a wave to Ghateem. Dark curls down to her shoulders—any longer and her hair was impossible to brush—pale skin, dark, heavy-lidded eyes that made every photograph of her look much too serious, a slight natural downturn of the mouth. Alison didn’t look like anyone else in her family, which was no surprise since she was adopted. She liked to dress in rich, bright colors, currently faded jean shorts worn thin and a deep red T-shirt. She liked how jewelry looked but couldn’t stand to wear it herself, as it inevitably snagged on things and got in her way or caught on her hair. 

She didn’t know where she’d come from or who her birth parents were. Her story was so classic it was almost a stereotype—an orphan left on the church steps in the dead of night with only a necklace to hint at her mysterious origins. But the necklace was long gone, and the origins had never revealed themselves, and as far as Alison was concerned that was fine by her. Her parents were her parents, her brother was her brother, and she didn’t need some long forgotten countess of a birth mother swooping in and messing that up. 

Alison’s house was at the end of Bligh Street, just two blocks from the town center and the church. She slowed to a quick walk as she approached, waving at Mrs. Livingston who was gardening across the way. 

She walked into her own whitewalled house and straight to the stairs, heading for her room. 

“Alison?” her mother called. 

“Not right now, Mum.” Now that she was home, the weight of Aamir’s news was hitting Alison all over again, and she wanted very much to be alone. 

She was halfway up the stairs when her mother appeared. Amelia Bruce was a small, sensible blonde woman, dressed in her customary sensible shirt and slacks. Her glasses were small with grey frames, perched on her round nose. “Come down here,” she said, her voice unusually serious. “There’s someone who wants to talk to you.”

Alison’s shoulders slumped. “Can it wait? Aamir told me something awful—“

“It really can’t, Alison. There’s biscuits.”

The biscuits helped. Alison was never one to turn down pre-dinner biscuits. She slouched down the stairs and into the sitting room where the visitor sat. 

The visitor was tall and slim, with dark skin and sharp eyes that missed nothing. She wore a long gold-auburn robe with black trim, which made Alison blink. Her first thought, having spent the afternoon bantering with Aamir, was cultists, but her mother, the vicar’s wife, would hardly insist Alison talk to a cultist. 

“Hello, Alison,” the woman said, smiling warmly. “Please, have a seat.”

“It’s my house,” said Alison. 

“Alison, that was rude.” Her mother tapped her shoulder warningly. “Go sit.”

Alison hesitated. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s leading a funeral. I left him a voicemail; he’ll be home as soon as he can. Sit.” 

Alison sat down on edge of the sofa, eyeing the stranger. She brushed her hair off her shoulders and took a biscuit, ignoring her mother’s disapproving look.

The stranger took it in stride with a smile. “Alison, I’m Professor Sinistra,” she said. “I’m here because you are a very special girl.”

“Special,” said Alison. “That means weird, doesn’t it.”

“Alison,” said Amelia, but Professor Sinistra’s smile widened. 

“Not necessarily weird,” she said. “But you’re not like those around you. You have special powers. You can do magic, Alison. But you probably know that already, don’t you?”

Alison sat very still. The biscuit was dust in her mouth. She swallowed it and gripped the edge of the couch, feeling the texture of the weaving and focusing on it as hard as she could.

“I teach at a boarding school called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” Professor Sinistra continued. “And I’d like to offer you a spot there. We can teach you how to use your magic, and you’ll be among your own kind.” 

Alison’s nails snagged on a loose thread. “Freaks.” 

“Not freaks. Witches and wizards.”

Alison shook her head. “Witches aren’t real. I’m a freak. This is some kind of Magneto school. I don’t want that. I like it here. I’m not leaving.” 

“Alison.” Amelia put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “You’re not a freak.” 

“If I’m not a freak then why are you so calm about sending me away?”

“I’m not calm, I just—“ 

Alison jumped up and brushed her mother away. “If you don’t want me any more just tell me, Mum! Don’t do this whole you’re special thing!” 

Amelia stepped back, shock and hurt on her face. “Alison, I would never--”

“--say it. Yeah. You’d get someone else to do it for you.” Alison shook her head. “I’m never not going to be a freak, am I?” 

Professor Sinistra stood up, robes swirling, and drew a long stick seemingly from nowhere. She pointed it at the tea set and said, “Wingardium Leviosa.” 

The tea set flew into the air, hovering several feet up. Amelia jumped and let out a squeak, grabbing Alison’s arm and pulling her out of the way. 

Alison’s mouth fell open. “That’s magic?”

“Of course.” Professor Sinistra lowered the tea set back down, then summoned a biscuit with a flick of her wrist. “What did you think I meant?” she asked, delicately taking a bite.

“I--I dunno.” Alison sat back down. Her knees were shaking. “Like, pentagrams and blood sacrifices and stuff.”

“Good lord, no. That sort of thing is dark magic. We don’t teach that.” Professor Sinistra sat down and picked up her teacup. “Actually one of our core classes is Defence Against the Dark Arts. It’ll teach you how to, well, defend yourself against dark magic.” 

“Oh. Well.” Alison pulled a piece of her hair, yanking the curl out of it. “That’s good.”

“You’ll learn things like levitating objects, Apparition, transfiguration. You’ll learn to fly.” 

“I feel like I’m the only person I know who’s never wanted to fly.” 

“Alison,” her mother said, but Professor Sinistra laughed. 

“Personally I think it’s overrated as well. But it’s useful.” She set down her teacup. “You don’t have to come if you really don’t want to, Alison. But you need to learn to control and use your magic, and Hogwarts is the best place for you to do it.”

“It’s true,” said Amelia, squeezing Alison’s shoulder. “Professor Sinistra told me all about it. They can teach you so many things we can’t, Al.” She sighed. “I never wanted to send you to boarding school, but you need to take what Hogwarts has to offer.”

Alison crossed her arms. “If Dad says I have to go, I’ll go.” There was no way her father would want to send her to Scotland. 

***

“I don’t want to send you to Scotland,” said Vicar David Bruce an hour and a half later. They were in Alison’s room. She sat cross-legged on her bed, while her father sat in the little-used rocking chair. He was a small, slightly pudgy man, with thinning pale hair and kind grey eyes behind wire glasses. He’d run home after the funeral without changing out of his priests’ robes and collar. To anyone less familiar with him than his daughter, that might have been either comforting or intimidating, depending on their stance on religion. To Alison, his attire was unremarkable. 

Alison let out a breath. 

Her father folded his hands in his lap. “But.”

Oh no. 

He sighed. “Your mother and I, as much as it hurts to admit it, are not able to teach you what you need to know about your powers.”

Alison buried her face in the pillow clutched to her chest. “You said boarding school ruined your relationship with your parents,” she mumbled into it. 

“What?”

She threw the pillow across the room and hit the bed with her fists. “You said boarding school ruined your relationship with your parents!” she yelled. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because I watched you move your teddy bear without touching it when you were three years old,” said David. 

Alison went silent. Shock radiated through her. 

“You’ve always had powers, Alison. You used them a lot when you were younger. Mostly when you were too young to remember.” Her father laid a hand near her on the bed. “The only part of this that surprises me is that there’s a school for it.” 

“What…” She swallowed. It felt like the bed was floating. “What did I use them for?” 

David frowned contemplatively. “You levitated your toys a lot. Once you didn’t want to go to the doctor and you teleported yourself back into the locked car. I had to break a window to get you out. You levitated a glass of milk and tipped it over on your brother’s head—we have a home video of that one.” He tapped his chin. “You stopped doing it when you were four or five, I think, and then it seemed like you forgot you could.”

“Why didn’t—“ Her voice cracked. She swallowed and tried again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We were going to. When you turned twelve. Your mother had it all planned out. We were going to show you that home video and explain everything.” 

“You knew? Both of you?”

“Yes. Well, not the details. Not about the school. But we knew you had some kind of magic, yes.”

“So that’s why Mum…”

He nodded. “That’s why she wasn’t weeping and wailing, yes.” 

Alison clenched the pillowcase in her fists. “Is that—when I was seven. I went to the hospital. And then. We moved. Did I—“ She squeezed her eyes shut. “Did it have anything to do with this?”

Her father hesitated. Alison cracked an eye open and watched his face as he decided how much to tell her. 

“Yes,” he said finally. “I think it did.”

Her stomach sank. “I hurt someone.”

David shook his head. “No. You almost hurt someone. But that’s why you need this school, isn’t it?” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I was naive to think you’d lost your powers. You’ve always had them, haven’t you? This kind of thing, Al… you have to learn to control it, make it part of you and use it for good, or it festers and it eats you alive.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about magic.”

“No, but it’s what my gut is telling me. I’ve learned to trust my gut.”

Alison couldn’t resist a jab. “There is a lot of it to trust.” 

“Oy.” David smiled briefly, then his face fell serious again. “But I think you know what I mean. Not sending you to this school would be like not teaching Zoe sign language.”

Alison’s shoulders slumped. When he put it like that, she had to admit he had a point. 

“But what if I hate it?” she asked, her voice small. She couldn’t imagine leaving Lumley. It was her home. 

“Tell you what.” David reached out and squeezed his daughter’s shoulder. “Give it a semester. If you still hate it after that, we’ll find a homeschool group for witches. But you have to give it a good, honest try with an open mind, all right?” 

Alison nodded. She slid off the bed and into her father’s lap. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight, and they both pretended that neither of them was crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! Comments are always appreciated <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy. I have... a lot of feelings about this one.
> 
> I've had this idea for probably four years now, ever since Cursed Child came out and I thought it was terrible. I wrote the prologue and first chapter in between intense bouts of college, work, and writers' block, and then... JK Rowling turned out to be a TERF. 
> 
> So that made me not want to write about her world any more, because fuck TERFs. But Alison wouldn't go away. I've put way too much thought into this not to write it down at this point. So I decided, fuck it. I'm making JK's world a little kinder. Alison and her friends are going on their adventures, even if it takes me forever to write them. Because Delphini, Harry, Albus, Scorpius, and all of the characters we grew up reading with and spent years speculating about deserve a hell of a lot better than JK gave them. 
> 
> So this is my fix-it fic. Not for a specific death or event, but for the whole world of Hogwarts post 1998. For Delphi. Or as she's known in this world, Alison. Because no matter what JK Rowling seems to think, being the child of evil parents does not necessarily make you evil. 
> 
> ***
> 
> Unfortunately, I can only write when my brain is working properly, which is seldom. So let me know if you want more. That'll help kick it into gear.


End file.
